Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose, That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close! The Nightingale that in the branches sang Ah whence and whither flown again, who knows? ~Omar Khayyam
Spring is one of the four seasons of temperate zones, the transition fromwinter intosummer.
Daughter of heaven and earth, coy Spring, With sudden passion languishing, Teaching barren moors to smile, Painting pictures mile on mile, Holds a cup of cowslip wreaths Whence a smokeless incense breathes. ~Ralph Waldo EmersonRing out thebells again; like we did when spring began. ~Billie Joe Armstrong
Ring out thebells again; like we did when spring began.
Is it so small a thing To have enjoy'd the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done; To have advanc'd true friends, and beat down baffling foes?
What does winter or autumn or spring or summer know of memory. They know nothing of memory. They know that seasons pass and return. They know that they are seasons. That they are time. And they know how to affirm themselves. And they know how to impose themselves. And they know how to maintain themselves, What does autumn know of summer. What sorrows do seasons have. None hate. None love. They just pass.
Giannina Braschi, "Pastoral or the Inquisition of Memories" fromEmpire of Dreams (1994)
The year's at the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearl'd; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in His heaven— All's right with the world!
There is symbolic as well as actualbeauty in the migration ofbirds, in the ebb and flow of thetides; in the folded bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing in these repeated refrains of nature-the assurance that dawn comes after night, andspring afterwinter.
Rachel Carson Speech (1954) In Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1998)
Over increasingly large areas of the United States,spring now comes unheralded by the return of thebirds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song.
The highroad was dry, the lovely April sun was shining warmly, but in the ditches and forest snow still lay on the ground. Harsh, dark, interminable winter was only just receding, and spring was suddenly here, but for Marya Vasilyevna, who sat now in the cart, there was nothing new or engaging in the warmth, or in the languid ethereal woods warming in the breath of spring, or in the black flocks flying off to the fields over giant puddles resembling lakes, or in the strange fathomless sky, into which, it seemed, one could escape with such pleasure.
If there comes a little thaw, Still the air is chill and raw. Here and there a patch of snow, Dirtier than the ground below, Dribbles down a marshy flood; Ankle-deep you stick in mud In the meadows, — while you sing, "This is Spring."
Christopher Pearse Cranch, "A Spring-Growl" (Staten Island, March 26, 1873), stanza VI, inThe Bird and the Bell, with Other Poems (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1875), p. 199.
What a glorious time of the year is this! With the warm sun travelling through serene skies, the air clear and fresh above you, which instils new blood in the body, making one defiantly tramp the earth, kicking the snows aside in the scorn of action.
Listen, can you hear it? Spring's sweet cantata. The strains of grass pushing through the snow. The song of buds swelling on the vine. The tender timpani of a baby robin's heart. Spring.
And we will know, we will pursue to knowJehovah. Like dawn, his going forth is firmly established. And he will come in like a pouring rain to us; like a spring rain that saturates [the] earth.
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring— When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing.
You sons of Zion, be joyful and rejoice inJehovah yourGod; for he will give you the autumn rain in the right amount, and he will send upon you a downpour, theautumn rain and the springrain, as before. The threshing floors will be full of pure grain, and the presses will overflow with newwine andoil. And I will make compensation to you for the years that the swarming locust, the unwinged locust, the voracious locust, and the devouring locust have eaten, my great army that I sent among you.
Snow-dropped, crocused, and violeted Spring, in the country, was beginning to consider about making her will, and leaving her legacies of full-blown flowers and green fruit to Summer
...the sun had come back over the Forest, bringing with it the scent of May, and all the streams of the Forest were tinkling happily to find themselves their own pretty shape again, and the little pools lay dreaming of the life they had seen and the big things they had done, and in the warmth and quiet of the Forest the cuckoo was trying over his voice carefully and listening to see if he liked it, and wood-pigeons were complaining gently to themselves in their lazy comfortable way that it was the other fellow's fault, but it didn't matter very much...
O Spring, of hope and love and youth and gladness Wind-wingèd emblem! brightest, best and fairest! Whence comest thou, when, with dark Winter's sadness The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest? Sister of joy! thou art the child who wearest Thy mother's dying smile, tender and sweet; Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet, Disturbing not the leaves which are her winding sheet.
The trees are cloth'd with leaves, the fields with grass; The blossoms blow; the birds on bushes sing; And Nature has accomplish'd all the Spring. ~Virgil,Eclogues (37 BC)
The Clouds consign their treasures to the fields, And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool, Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow In large effusion, o'er the freshen'd world.
All the efforts of several hundred thousand people, crowded in a small space, to disfigure the land on which they lived; all the stone they covered it with to keep it barren; how so diligently every sprouting blade of grass was removed; all the smoke of coal and naphtha; all the cutting down of trees and driving off of cattle could not shut out the spring, even from the city. The sun was shedding its light; the grass, revivified, was blooming forth, where it was left uncut, not only on the greenswards of the boulevard, but between the flag-stones, and the birches, poplars and wild-berry trees were unfolding their viscous leaves; the limes were unfolding their buds; the daws, sparrows and pigeons were joyfully making their customary nests, and the flies were buzzing on the sun-warmed walls. Plants, birds, insects and children were equally joyful. Only men—grown-up men—continued cheating and tormenting themselves and each other. People saw nothing holy in this spring morning, in this beauty of God's world—a gift to all living creatures—inclining to peace, good-will and love, but worshiped their own inventions for imposing their will on each other.
Now Spring returns; but not to me returns The vernal joy my better years have known; Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns, And all the joys of life with health have flown.
Starred forget-me-nots smile sweetly, Ring, blue-bells, ring! Winning eye and heart completely, Sing, robin, sing! All among the reeds and rushes, Where the brook its music hushes, Bright the caloposon blushes.— Laugh, O murmuring Spring!
Daughter of heaven and earth, coy Spring, With sudden passion languishing, Teaching barren moors to smile, Painting pictures mile on mile, Holds a cup of cowslip wreaths Whence a smokeless incense breathes.
I come, I come! ye have called me long, I come o'er the mountain with light and song: Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth, By the winds which tell of the violet's birth, By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass, By the green leaves, opening as I pass.
All flowers of Spring are not May's own; The crocus cannot often kiss her; The snow-drop, ere she comes, has flown:— The earliest violets always miss her.
And softly came the fair young queen O'er mountain, dale, and dell; And where her golden light was seen An emerald shadow fell. The good-wife oped the window wide, The good-man spanned his plough; 'Tis time to run, 'tis time to ride, For Spring is with us now.
Awake! the morning shines, and the fresh field Calls us; we lose the prime, to mark how spring Our tended plants, how blows the citron grove, What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed, How nature paints her colours, how the bee Sits on the bloom, extracting liquid sweet.
On many a green branch swinging, Little birdlets singing Warble sweet notes in the air. Flowers fair There I found. Green spread the meadow all around.
Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose, That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close! The Nightingale that in the branches sang Ah whence and whither flown again, who knows?
Omar Khayyam,Rubaiyat, FitzGerald's Translation St. 96.
Gentle Spring!—in sunshine clad, Well dost thou thy power display! For Winter maketh the light heart sad, And thou,—thou makest the sad heart gay.
Hark! the hours are softly calling Bidding Spring arise, To listen to the rain-drops falling From the cloudy skies, To listen to Earth's weary voices, Louder every day, Bidding her no longer linger On her charm'd way; But hasten to her task of beauty Scarcely yet begun.
I wonder if the sap is stirring yet, If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate, If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun, And crocus fires are kindling one by one.
There is no time like Spring, When life's alive in everything, Before new nestlings sing, Before cleft swallows speed their journey back Along the trackless track.
I sing the first green leaf upon the bough, The tiny kindling flame of emerald fire, The stir amid the roots of reeds, and how The sap will flush the briar.
For, lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
The Song of Solomon, II. 11, 12.
So forth issew'd the Seasons of the yeare: First, lusty Spring, all dight in leaves of flowres That freshly budded and new bloomes did beare, In which a thousand birds had built their bowres That sweetly sung to call forth paramours; And in his hand a javelin he did beare, And on his head (as fit for warlike stoures) A guilt, engraven morion he did weare: That, as some did him love, so others did him feare.
Edmund Spenser,The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book VII, Canto VII. Legend of Constancie, Stanza 28.
Now the hedged meads renew Rustic odor, smiling hue, And the clean air shines and twinkles as the world goes wheeling through; And my heart springs up anew, Bright and confident and true, And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.
O tender time that love thinks long to see, Sweet foot of Spring that with her footfall sows Late snow-like flowery leavings of the snows, Be not too long irresolute to be; O mother-month, where have they hidden thee?
Once more the Heavenly Power Makes all things new, And domes the red-plough'd hills With loving blue; The blackbirds have their wills, The throstles too.
The bee buzz'd up in the heat, "I am faint for your honey, my sweet." The flower said, "Take it, my dear, For now is the Spring of the year. So come, come!" "Hum!" And the bee buzz'd down from the heat.
'Tis spring-tune on the eastern hills! Like torrents gush the summer rills; Through winter's moss and dry dead leaves The bladed grass revives and lives, Pushes the mouldering waste away, And glimpses to the April day.
And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of spring, And the rosebud breaks into pink on the climbing briar, And the crocus bed is a quivering moon of fire Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.
The Spring is here—the delicate footed May, With its slight fingers full of leaves and flowers, And with it comes a thirst to be away, In lovelier scenes to pass these sweeter hours.
